A
Citation A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., 114 F.Supp.2d 896 (N.D. Cal. 2000) (full-text), aff'd, 239 F.3d 1004, 57 U.S.P.Q.2d (BNA) 1729 (9th Cir. 2001) (full-text), on remand, 2001 WL 777005 (N.D. Cal. Mar 05, 2001), aff'd, 284 F.3d 1091, 62 U.S.P.Q.2d (BNA) 1221 (9th Cir. 2002) (full-text). Factual Background In this case, various record companies brought a copyright infringement action against Napster, an Internet service that facilitated the sharing of digital music files among its users. The files themselves — the infringing material — always remained on the users' computer systems and never passed through Napster’s system. However, Napster maintained a central server that indexed the contents of the network. This feature allowed users to search for particular files of interest and to initiate a peer-to-peer transfer of those files. District Court Proceedings The district court issued a preliminary injunction on the grounds that the plaintiffs were likely to be able to establish Napster’s liability for contributory (i.e., secondary) copyright infringement.239 F.2d at 1020. The district court’s decision was based largely on the fact that Napster utilized a central server on which it maintained the index of files available for sharing.Id. Appellate Court Proceedings On February 12, 2001, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the lower court opinion, but sent the case back to craft a new injunction against Napster that was narrower than the original injunction. The court summarized the central features of its decision as follows: Rejecting Napster’s argument that the users were making fair use of the record companies’ copyrighted material, the court emphasized that the use was commercial because the users of the network received for free what they normally would have to buy, namely, compact discs. It was not transformative, since the service added no new creative or expressive elements to the copyrighted material. Moreover, the court held that the service not only harmed the copyright owner’s existing market for the sale of musical compact discs, but also raised barriers to the copyright owner’s entry into the same market. Subsequent District Court Proceedings On March 5, 2001, the district court issued a revised injunction consistent with the February 12th decision by the Ninth Circuit. Under the revised injunction: * Napster is enjoined from “engaging in, or facilitating others in, copying, downloading, uploading, transmitting, or distributing copyrighted sound recordings. . . .” * However, “the Ninth Circuit held that the burden of ensuring that no copying, downloading, uploading, transmitting or distributing of plaintiffs’ copyrighted works occurs on the system is shared between the parties. The court ‘placed the burden on plaintiffs to provide notice to Napster’ and imposed on Napster the burden ‘of policing the system within the limits of the system.’ * The Record Industry Plaintiffs must “provide notice to Napster of their copyrighted sound recordings by providing for each work: (A) the title of the work; (B) the name of the featured recording artist performing the work (“artist name”); © the name(s) of one or more files available on the Napster system containing such work; and (D) a certification that plaintiffs own or control the rights allegedly infringed.” * “All parties shall use reasonable measures in identifying variations of the filename(s), or of the spelling of the titles or artists’ names, of the works identified by plaintiffs. If it is reasonable to believe that a file available on the Napster system is a variation of a particular work or file identified by plaintiffs, all parties have an obligation to ascertain the actual identity (title and artist name) of the work and to take appropriate action within the context of . . . March 5th . . . Order.” * “Once Napster ‘receives reasonable knowledge’ . . . of specific infringing files containing copyrighted sound recordings,” it shall, “within three (3) business days, prevent such files from being included in the Napster index (thereby preventing access to the files corresponding to such names through the Napster system).” References Category:Case Category:Case-U.S.-Federal Category:Case-U.S.-Copyright Category:Copyright Category:Music Category:File sharing Category:2000 Category:2001